Things I would like to have known about Stardew Valley before I started

[alias_sqbr]

Mild spoilers.

• there's no time limit on anything, so you can be as slow and inefficient as you like, though sometimes it can be frustrating if you, say, just miss a Spring-only task and have to wait 3 "months" before you can do it again.
  
• it's pretty forgiving: you can't fail, just progress more slowly. And past a certain point most players will have more money than they know what to do with.
  
• there's flexibility in what you focus on, but it's hard to completely avoid any of the main types of activity (farming, mining/combat, fishing, socialising, gathering). As I said in my previous post I managed to largely avoid fishing, also pretty early on I spent the money/resources to create sprinklers so I could stop having to remember to water things. I only really got into raising animals and making social connections pretty late and that's been ok.
  
• Love interests won't get past 8 hearts (and thus progress the relationship) unless you hit on them. On the plus side taking so long to figure this out encouraged me to get to know the others better.
  
• If you don't talk to people for a week their points go down.
  
• asides from the romances being player gender neutral, it's a pretty heteronormative world. One of the girl love interests has a female ex but I don't know if that's because my character is female. It would be hard to play as entirely non binary, you're not gendered all the time but there are definite You Are A Girl Moments beyond pronouns.
  
• what dialogue and plot there is gets pretty repetitive, though befriending more people over time adds the odd cute little cut scene. There's no overarching plot.
  
• the grumpy wheelchair using old man is exactly the ableist stereotype he appears to be, and several scenes for other characters involve telling him to be less grumpy :/ He is sympathetic, at least, and has some mild character growth.
  
• Check the tv for new recipes every Sunday! Repeats are on Wednesday if you miss any, and the cycle repeats entirely every 2 years.
  
• Shop stock varies. The caravan on Fridays and Sundays is different every time, Robin and Pierre sell mostly the same things but their house decorations vary. There's also two unlockable shops which vary by day of the week.
  
• lucky rabbits feet are kind of a pain to get, unless the algorithm's been tweaked, and you need them for the community centre. If you see them for sale, buy one.
  
• Don't donate the prismatic shard or dinosaur egg to the museum until you've had the chance to duplicate them. They're useful and rare!
  

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